The Thaw Before The Spring

From January to September, the light lasts a little longer each day.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Love Like A Sunset(*Please play this video while reading*)

Love is like a sunset.

On sunday night, I slept with a restlessness. I was flummoxed. Thatnight, I was tossing, turning and gasping after a violent dream.That same night, I awoke at 2 am after falling asleep at midnightwith a ringing in my ears and a pressure throughout my being. Icouldn't get back to sleep.

The dream entailed horrible things - like seeing my own father gunneddown by a machine-gun helicopter in the dead of night and beinghelpless to do anything. Later, when I found the culprit of theshooting in the dream, I drove a rusty camping knife into the backof his neck. I don't remember seeing any blood. I just rememberthat the knife would not penetrate the skin and that I had to driveit into the back of his neck with furious, consecutive jabs.

A few moments later in the dream, I was with the culprit and afew other people in a dark room with a moonlit window...and wewere all in different beds.

I'll explain.

To give some pretext, what I understood from the synopsis of thedream was that we (the culprit, my dad, myself and few otherfaceless, nameless people) were all playing a 'game' and that thepoint of said 'game' was to get from one point of a dark field toanother without using any weapons. Myself and my dad were onone team (with a few other people I don't remember) and Locke(the character from Lost) was with a bunch of other people onanother team. My dad and I started in the field together andstarted moving towards the end goal - when in an instant, wecould hear the roar of the chopper in the sky. As soon as we sawit, high up on the sky almost looking like a pixel in an Atari gameit was so far away, it mowed down a bunch of people - includingmy dad. I kept running.

In my frantic run, I remember thinking 'I wish I had a knife' andBANG - there in a dark field, a knife appeared on the wet grass.This was also no ordinary knife - this was a wood-handledcamping knife from the basement of my parents house. Ipicked it up and felt familiar. After getting the knife andconcealing it, I met up with the opposing team on the way todownward-leading staircase to the side of the field. Thestaircase was concrete and dimly lit and Locke from the otherteam passed me, explaining to his teammates that 'they wonfair and square' and that 'the helicopter was approved by thehigher power'. Apparently, the authority of some higherpower commissioned the use of the helicopter. I didn't care.I saw Locke's neck in front of me on the stairs and I knewwhat I had to do. I lunged at him with a series of jabs anddrove the knife in deep. As he fell, he mumbled the words'you...cheated'.

The next thing I knew, Locke, myself and the rest of histeam were in the aforementioned dark room, all in our ownbeds, as if we had all awoken from the same dream. Therewere whispers of confusion and people saying 'What the hellis going on?'. Locke seemed to know and looked out themoonlit window beside his bed saying the words 'This is it.The harvest at the helm'.

That was last night. Which led to yesterday morning.(*skip ahead to 5:40 on the video and read the next partslowly*)

But not this morning. This morning, I awoke with the sleet andgrey skies...and I felt renewed. I felt like a coil had been shuckedfrom the detritus of my exoskeleton - like I had slept whilefloating on my back in a Lanark County lake. I could breatheagain. I felt normal - soothed. Appeased. At peace.

I showered in water that seemed like it was from the ocean -drying and rejeuvenating me at the same time. I combedback my thinning hair, put on a freshly starched dressshirt and tie, and made my way to work.